At Wit's End
by TheAudaciousButterfly
Summary: Kat's cottage at Wit's End contains a ghost; a ghost who has made a deal with Death, and Kat is pulled into helping him fulfill his side of the bargain.  FWxOC.
1. The Ghost at Wit's End

**Title: **At Wit's End

**Author: **TheAudaciousButterfly

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **When Kat inherited her uncle's cottage at Wit's End, she was expecting to be sharing it with dust mites and the occasional spider, but instead she finds a ghost with a penchant for watching her in the shower. But her ghost has made a deal with Death, and Kat gets swept up in fixing it before it's too late.

**Disclaimer: **J.K. Rowling is the rightful owner of all things Harry Potter.

**The Ghost at Wit's End**

"The gracious royal couples

were warm in red and ermine;

their feet were well wrapped up

in the ladies' ermine trains.

They invited Arthur to be

the smallest page at court.

But how could Arthur go,

clutching his tiny lily,

with his eyes shut up so tight

and the roads deep in snow?"

"_The First Death in Nova Scotia," _by Elizabeth Bishop

_It had been raining ever since. Almost like the weather knew._

George's stomach lurched; he was sure if he'd eaten anything that day it would have been on the floor. He was standing in front of his brother, but did not understand why his eyes did not see. He called out his twin's name, but did not understand why his ears could not hear.

Later, after _her_, George would think about how Muggle poets who tried to write about the pain of being numb, of feeling nothing, were total gits; there is no pain. There is no _anything, _and there is definitely no poetry in emptiness. Not enough emotion for imagery, diction, syntax (all terms _she _would teach him).

While everyone else moved on, patted him on the shoulder as they walked past him, wrapped their arms around him in hugs that he did not recognize, George stayed in the same place, in the black room of his mind. If he moved on, if he let himself cry, he would be acknowledging the death of his best friend, his only true friend really, his brother, his _twin. _Not even a freckle of difference, their mother used to say; to everyone they were almost interchangeable. Not anymore, George reminded himself bitterly. Now it doesn't matter how alike we are; it's never going to bring him back. The thought bit him, acknowledged what he had promised not to, and George shuddered. He didn't know how to be alone, he realized. George had always defined himself by his brother. Without Fred, he was just an idea without the invention, the follower without a lead, the "and George" without the Fred.

The first crack of lightning occurred only an hour after, and after that it was rain. Rain, rain that impedes the growth of bones, that later he would find in his shoes, that weighed down the bottoms of his jeans. It came suddenly, in a heavy sheet that hit so hard it made it difficult for George to stand up; though whether that was the rain, he wasn't sure. If it had been the other way around, Fred would have made a point to not be afraid; George couldn't bother to be like Fred today. What a funny thing, he thought, that people would say how silly it is for me to have to work to be like him.

Eight days later and the rain stopped. George didn't know, anymore, if he preferred the rain.

**Four years later.**

George traced a finger down the window, following the leftovers of Jack Frost's artwork from the night before. He caught snatches of Harry and Ron's murmurs from the other side of the counter, disjointed phrases that he imbibed languidly, letting them pass over his good ear like murmuring water. George saw his own face in the window, his eyelashes blinking wildly. He thought he saw his reflection wink, and he pulled away from the glass, shocked. George's hand had almost reached the window when a squeaky voice broke him from his delusion.

"You're Harry Potter!" the young boy exclaimed, couldn't be more than six, with a mop of brown hair, cut in the straight line of a bowl; someone had messed up on the sides, making him look like he was tilting his head at all times. "How'd you do it, uh, Mr. Potter, sir?" George looked out the window again, hoping to see his twin's face, but finding only his own. Not a freckle of difference, once. Now, a century's worth of grief, all of the pain felt by every person in every war made a schism between them. George had heard Harry's story before, had learned to tune it out. The story was different this time, though, Harry telling part of it George had never heard before.

"And then, just when I was walking to meet Voldemort," the boy's eyes were wide, as if he wasn't sure that Harry was going to make it out alive, despite the evidence that was right in front of him, "when I knew I was going to die, I realized that the snitch that my old headmaster gave me was the second hallow," Harry's voice had taken on an ominous tone, teasing the child, "the Resurrection Stone. So just when I needed them most, my parents, my godfather, and their best friend came to me—"

"You had the Resurrection Stone?" George asked, his voice cutting through the air like dark poison in a man's veins. The mood was broken, and the little boy and Harry looked up.

Ron's voice from behind him did not break the tension on George's face, nor make him look away from the bespectacled man in front of him, "You've heard this story, George."

"You had the stone?" George repeated, the look on his face not at all resembling the countenance of the giant figure outside of the shop; it was stony, his bottom lip hard and menacing. "You had the stone and you didn't give it to me, you could have brought him back, you could have brought Fred back!" People were beginning to stare as George grabbed the collar of the Boy Who Lived, raising his fist while Harry squinted, not wanting to hurt the distraught twin—no, Harry supposed, it wasn't right to think of him that way, even in his head. It was only Ron's hand wrapped around George's that made the redhead stop, his breath ragged. The little boy was crying, his mother, in a red pillbox hat that was too fancy for shopping, holding him back, with a look of alarm on her face. Surprise hung in the air around the shop; even the Pygmy Puffs were looking up.

"Even if he could have, Fred would never be the same," Ron reminded his brother, his voice gentler; years of being an Auror and victim to George's moods had made him adept at dealing with disaster.

"But at least he'd be here," his voice, soft, broke mid sentence, and then he shook his head. "Get out," George hissed, his voice low and coarse, his eyes meeting his brother's; they had turned so dark that their blue looked almost black, dark ink on strained white. "All of you." The rain outside had turned into fat, bombarding flakes of snow.

It was that day that George decided that no matter what it cost him he would get his brother back.

**OoOoO**

The smell of salted ice and melted snow on mittens filled the entryway to the bar as Katherine Spark knocked snowflakes off of her boots. She wasn't sure if she preferred this, or the whipping rain that had turned into snow that afternoon; either way, it was the wind that was the worst.

Fuzzy letters on the clock above the bar told her it was 11:43 at night. Girls who couldn't hold their martinis and shots of tequila were already passing out; strong shouldered men supported women swaying from their own ecstasy, a mixture of gin and lust. It was Katherine's perfect time of evening, wedged between joyous revelers and creatures of the night.

"Can I buy you a drink?" a deep voice asked, interrupting her thoughts. Katherine looked up to see a man with a scruffy blonde beard, and hair that hung too long in his eyes. His question was sweaty palmed, too nervous, like she was practice.

"Who are you kidding?" said another voice, positioned behind the guy. He didn't seem to notice. "It's the blonde over at the other side of the bar that he's after, Kat, you're just…a decoy." Katherine's eyes slid over to the figure, the one that only exploded in her brain, taking in the dark curl that hung into his eyes, so different from the blonde in front of her. His eyes, dark, the feature that made him most like something from a Bronte novel, the way one corner of his mouth turned up into a sly grin. The way that when she looked away he was gone again, evanescing into the sounds of cheering football fans, watching old games on the staticky television set in the corner. _He isn't real. He isn't real. He isn't real._

"Sorry," Kat exclaimed, her voice strangled as she leapt from her stool, grabbing her coat and hat before heading out the door. She pressed her fingers to her heart, as if making sure it was still there, and was comforted by the steady rhythm.

She didn't understand how someone who wasn't even dead could be haunting her.

**OoOoO**

As a fourth year literature major at Oxford, Kat was sure that she knew something of death. While John Donne lied at St. Paul's, a spinning ride on the underground away, Kat could recite his lines on death from memory, pick them apart until the words were like bread savaged by famished vultures, until they meant nothing anymore. The greatest messengers of death and grief, the poets, inhabited her favourite corner of the graveyard at Westminster Abbey, not far from her dingy apartment—no, she'd have to remind herself to say flat now. From Dostoyevsky's murder of the old pawnbroker woman to Shakespeare's Danish slaughter, Kat could whip out a quote for mourning families, imprisoned murderers, almost any situation could be assuaged by her literary allusions about death. She was surrounded by it, entrenched in it, writhing in words about death.

Which was why her reaction to the ghost was so strange.

Kat thought she saw a face, but she couldn't be sure if it was a reflection in her head; she already saw ghosts, the ones stamped on the edges of her brain, jagged pages torn from the books of her past. This was different: this one she didn't already know The face was a true ghost's; not one swimming through her memory—whatever part of her brain held that.

Kat dismissed the image. It wasn't until later, when she was pushing her way through the tangling London streets with the expertise of someone who already knew the routine—dodge the lady with the exorbitant hat and slobbering Dalmatian, avoid the suit who appeared to be talking to himself while he juggled two Starbucks coffees—that she saw the face again, not implanted on her kitchen counters or the tired walls of her bedroom, but connected to a man's body. Sterner, more ragged—more haunted, ironically—than her ghost, but his face. Kat ran after him, evading her normal route to stalk after him. "Hey!" she called. "Wait!" But her ghost had already disappeared, faded into the crowd or melted into one of the seedy bars that lined the street like wine-laden soldiers after victory. Bars her other ghosts frequented.

Kat turned around, finding an odd refuge in that across the street, her other ghosts conspired against her, but she could be sure that those were only in her head.


	2. The Bottom of the Bottle

**Title: **At Wit's End

**Author: **TheAudaciousButterfly

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **When Kat inherited her uncle's cottage at Wit's End, she was expecting to be sharing it with dust mites and the occasional spider, but instead she finds a ghost with a penchant for watching her in the shower. But her ghost has made a deal with Death, and Kat gets swept up in fixing it before it's too late.

**Disclaimer: **J.K. Rowling is the rightful owner of all things Harry Potter.

**Notes: **First of all: Oh my giddy God, Starkiller actually reviewed my story. And she _likes_ it. Oh. My. God. You have to understand, her story, Twin Vice Paranormal Detectives is **amazing**. Seriously, if you have not read it **read it now. **I was working on this story when I found it and I was so afraid that mine would sound too similar.

Second of all: Please review! I like them. I like them a lot. Even constructive criticism is very welcome!

Third of all: There are some really amazing stories on here that need to be read! If you haven't found them yet, here's my list of ones that must be read.

**Twin Vice Paranormal Detectives** by Starkiller

**Epiphanies and Ginger Boys** by Virginia Wolfe

**Fury **by Emagen Laile

**The Ollivander Children **by vifetoile89

**The Bottom of the Bottle**

"As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

'Now his breath goes,' and some say, 'No.'"

-_"A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," by John Donne_

Let me tell you something about heartbreak.

Heart_break_ isn't the right word for it. It's more of a refraction. If it were a clean break it would be easier. But part keeps on hanging on. Like that science experiment that everyone does in the fourth grade where they stick a straw in a glass of water and hold it up to the light, a sort of disjointedness. Like a bone, half broken but still hanging on. That was it: the halfness. You can't feel like a whole when you're only a half.

Without his brother, George was refracted.

**OoOoO**

Those who did not wish to scratch past the surface of George Weasley would believe that he was still operating with the same precision as usual. The same tightness in the muscles of his forearm, the same flinch of a vein in his forehead when a sale didn't go how it was supposed to, the same grit of his teeth when he mixed boomslang skin and bubotuber pus and it caused the bottom of his cauldron to burn through. The same ghost of Fred in his face when someone made him grin.

But that was just the surface.

No one questioned the fact that George was never fully okay without his brother's matching laugh, and sly grins. George was gentler, and softer than his brother—his mother might not be able to tell them apart, but George knew himself. He thought it would have been easier if it had been him who'd died; Fred would have gotten over it, eventually, but George…George just _couldn't_. It was that simple. It still hurt. He didn't let the cracks show through, however, hidden behind a layer of smooth skin, pulling tight across his chin. Everyone thought he was fine. Not great, not having moments of elation, not having dance parties in his living room, but _fine._ _Managing._ They had no idea.

The Firewhiskey burned, creating a satisfying path down his throat and he felt his cheeks flush and the drink settle in the bottom of his stomach. He was sure he could feel it making alliances with his stomach acid, like old friends in a pub. George wondered what his mother would say to see him sitting on the half-broke couch—it was entirely possible to fall all the way through the middle seat, something Fred had insisted on keeping to trick unsuspecting visitors—with the fraying blue denim upholstery, taking swigs straight from the twenty-six ounce bottle of Ogden's. George wondered even more what she would say if she saw that it was empty. But then again, he reminded himself, she'd probably look at him the same way she had since the battle; like it hurt her too much to do so. George suspected that like him, Molly wished that it was George, not Fred, who had been stuck underneath the wall.

Missing the weight of a full bottle, George dug around in the cabinets. Everything there was in a perfect set of pairs, but a thin layer of dust had settled over the surface of one set. It was not Fred's that George neglected, but his own. Empty bottles clinked together has George desperately grasped for any type of relief. Feebly sucking at the rim around the bottle of Butterbeer, he threw down his efforts, creating a pile of fractured glass at his knees. He left that there; the pieces were broken, completely separated. He was still only refracted, still hanging on. When the cold night air smacked his already pink cheeks outside, he expected to feel more sober, but only felt more lost as he stumbled around the Leaky Cauldron and travelled through the streets of Muggle London, a labyrinth of oblivion.

**OoOoO**

It seemed appropriate that the cottage that he was inhabiting was called Wit's End, because Fred was certain that he was on his last nerve. He was so _bored_. At first he had been interested by the little picture box that the Muggle girl who lived there would tap-tap at and look at random pictures, usually of a swarthy looking lad with floppy black hair and crooked smile on something called _Facebook, _and had even examined the spines of her Muggle books. What on Earth was a _Wuthering Height_, and why had he never heard of a place called _Mansfield Park? _After spying on her when she was in the shower began getting old, not to mention slightly creepy, he had tried to entertain himself by moving things around. Unfortunately his unsubstantial body passed through objects, like breath on a cold day that hung in the air but couldn't change anything. And nobody could _see_ him; he couldn't even prank anyone, except for by passing through them and giving them a shiver-shock, a very sad attempt.

But then, then she started to see him, Fred could tell. The dynamic shifted. When Fred appeared in her bathroom mirror, while she was wrapped in only a towel, he could tell that her eyes had narrowed, and traced the outline of his face with her small index finger.

He may not be able to prank her, but life had gotten much more interesting. Fred broke into his signature grin, the one that would be imprinted on Kat's mind for the rest of her life as it faced her, reflected in her mirror.

**OoOoO**

It was no surprise that Kat was a lover of words, considering she was a literary allusion herself. Her name – Katherine, in full – was a self fulfilling prophecy: the shrew. Whether her parents had fashioned her after Katherine, the sharp-tongued Paduan maid, or the name had just been coincidentally appropriate, Kat was unsure, but the oppressed Shakespearean heroine had definitely exhibited the same personality. Her mother was the pre-eminent Shakespeare scholar in North America, having moved from Newcastle in Northern England—her mother still proclaimed, with a laugh, that she was from a third world country—to the prestigious Columbia University in New York. Her father, on the other hand, had dropped out of English literature in his third year and pursued his love of cooking, opening what had in her childhood had always been "The Restaurant," but she later learned was actually called _The Spark Bistro, _(it did much better in New York than its predecessor in Newcastle) a small, romantic restaurant with a world famous chicken fettucine alfredo, which bore her name, having been her favourite dish when she was younger.

But it had been words that had first brought the round-faced Roland Spark with his big belly laugh and the fine-boned, bird-like, unable-to-be-described-in-one-word Andrea Harvey together, particularly the words of _The Taming of the Shrew_. Roland had been lost in the slippery language, unable to untangle himself from the "thy"s and "thus"s, and Andrea had been the outspoken feminist who would bang her tiny fist against the desk whenever she made a particularly passionate point in ENG356, Shakespeare's Comedies and Problem Plays. They had been placed together as partners, along with a mousy girl with glasses that would slide down her thin nose every few seconds, for a group project, which Kat's father reveled in and Kat's mother detested. The rest, so to speak, was history. Kat, following in her mother's footsteps, could hardly make toast without burning it ("That's how I like it!" her father would exclaim whenever she would hand him a smoking black lump of bread) would always explain when asked why she was in English literature that she'd never seen a papier mache volcano science project that had made her cry the way that _Jane Eyre_ did.

It was _Taming of the Shrew_ that Kat had balanced precariously on the top of her pile of books as she left the library, having been kicked out by the meddlesome bookkeepers; they couldn't leave her in silence for most of the day, as they continually asked her if she needed research help, and then they ushered her out when she was in the middle of an interesting paragraph in her dissertation on the role of education in the play. Typical. The tall stack of books she had gathered in her arms made her feel as if she was swerving back and force, a wholly unsettling sensation, sort of like after she'd left the chicken a tinge pink in her feeble attempt at _Fettucine di Katherina. _She wasn't expecting to run into someone equally unsteady, though for an entirely different reason, and it felt like the books exploded out of her hands. "'Ey, watch it!" she exclaimed, her Geordie accent coming out particularly strong as the pages flayed out across the sidewalk. She automatically bent down to gather them in her arms, but found it was almost impossible to balance all of the books in the right order, with them having been perfect before.

"Mmph..bul—bugger," Kat's adversary slurred, and she realized that he smelled like her father's hands after his foray into beer brewing, and something spicier which she vaguely recognized as whiskey from a disastrous night after—she shook the thought from her head. But the imprint of _him_ remained on her mind, making her brows furrow. It took a moment for Kat to reach the bleary-eyed man's eyes, and when she did she almost dropped her books again. His bright red hair was flicked with blonde, a summer leftover. It was cut short except for a fringe which fell across his brow, making him look oddly unbalanced. His long eyelashes, framing large brown eyes, were glued together with tears in pointed clusters. Having never seen her ghost's body, Kat didn't realize that he would be…well, short or that he would have sinewy muscles pulling at his t-shirt and they were even visible in the arms of his jacket.

"My ghost," Kat gasped in a whisper. "Who are you? Why are you here? Why are you…_real_?" she exclaimed in a choked voice.

Her inquiries were answered by him puking all over her shoes.


	3. Reunification Talks

**Title: **At Wit's End

**Author: **TheAudaciousButterfly

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **When Kat inherited her uncle's cottage at Wit's End, she was expecting to be sharing it with dust mites and the occasional spider, but instead she finds a ghost with a penchant for watching her in the shower. But her ghost has made a deal with Death, and Kat gets swept up in fixing it before it's too late.

**Disclaimer: **J.K. Rowling is the rightful owner of all things Harry Potter.

**Reunification Talks**

"Like sleuth-hounds too

The Fates pursue."

-_Oedipus Rex _ by Sophocles

The light that filtered in through George's eyes felt like someone scraping barbed wire over his corneas, a form of torture that he was sure that Moldywart would have been very fond of. If only he knew he didn't need Unforgiveable Curses, but just needed to dare someone to drink to the bottom of the bottle, George was sure that the evil git would have won the war. Attempting to push himself up, he reached around himself so that he was balancing on one arm, but a woozy swoosh in his head made him realize that he may still be a little drunk and he dropped himself back down. George risked opening his eyes, braving the razorblades that he knew would bombard him in a moment.

"Here," someone's voice thrust a steaming cup of coffee at him. He could feel the heat on her skin and the smell smashed him hard in the face, and he couldn't tell if it was delicious or disgusting to him. "It'll help with the headache."

"Thanks," George groaned, taking a sip of the coffee and grimacing, as he sat up. "Your coffee tastes like dirt." It took him a moment to realize that he was sitting in the middle seat of a couch and he wasn't falling through it—this was not his couch. This was not his flat. He looked at who had handed him the coffee, expecting to see Hermione or Ginny, not having registered that the voice wasn't quite right as his heart in his ears was too loud. Instead, he saw a girl with brown hair, greasy fringe hanging limply across her forehead. Her eyes were a muddled green, like the colour of camouflage. She looked strangely like her legs were too long for her shorter body. Even in his less than spectacular state, he still recognized that she almost certainly had satisfying curves underneath her loose t-shirt. He had also never seen her before. "Er…who are you?"

"I think that's a question _you_ should be answering, don't you? What have you been doing, being all transparent around _my_ cottage? I have seen you, you know," Kat replied indignantly, thrusting her hands into her pockets.

George felt his temples throbbing, like someone had decided to use his forehead as a drum. He had no idea what this girl was talking about, but he thought it was typical that he of all people would wind up getting taken care of by a complete crazy. She probably had a torture chamber in the other room where she'd make him dress up in a mailman's outfit.

"Well?" Kat prompted, her voice becoming high and tight as anger flashed across her eyes and she jumped out of her seat. But then she stopped, every muscle in her body dropping by an inch. "The reason..the reason you're unbalanced," she said.

"Hey!" _You're the one who's going off at me when I've never even met you before,_ he thought, but didn't vocalize it.

"No. No, you look all off-kilter. You're missing an ear. My ghost…my ghost isn't missing an ear." Kat sunk slowly back down into her seat, feeling the springs push back up against her. "You're not my ghost."

Maybe if he had been Percy, George would have mentally stamped "insane" on this girl's forehead. Maybe if he had been Bill or Charlie, he wouldn't have entertained the idea at all, and run out almost immediately. But George was George; he challenged impossibilities simply on principle. So even though he could hear his mother's voice in the back of his head telling him that it couldn't be Fred—_He's been dead for four years, it's impossible—_George could still go on thinking that it _was_ possible. Him and Fred had never been ones for following conventions, and maybe Fred had maintained not only his characteristic grin but also his penchant for breaking rules even in death. It took George a moment that the girl had been talking for the past few moments and that all of it was sounding like white noise to him.

"Erm. I'm George Weasley," George interrupted her awkwardly, thrusting his trembling hand out to her. Kat looked at his hand for a moment before arching her perfectly shaped eyebrow. He gulped and added, "You're not a serial killer or Death Eater leftover or anything are you?" He had meant it as a joke, but Kat just looked confused. "You know, the dark wizards who wanted to take over the wizarding world, followers of Voldemort, you know." In his unhealthy state, he had not taken in her lack of wand, or the general hum of electricity that permeated the whole house. He mentally swore.

The two stood there for a second, each one both imagining that they were stuck in a cottage fittingly called _Wit's End_, with a total crockpot. Kat considered him for a moment, realizing that she had claimed to have seen a ghost, and he _could_ always be talking about a particularly important game of _Dungeons and Dragons. _Kat then extended her hand with a tentative and thin smile. "Katherine Spark. You owe me a pair of shoes."

**OoOoO**

Fred had examined his brother, able to pinpoint every differing and every identical freckle on his face. His hair looked less red than usual, like summer had hung on to him, an ironic contrast to his weathered face which reflected no ray of sunshine. Fred had plunged his icy hand into the empty space at his brother's ear, but had received only a contemptuous sleep snort in response. Fred frowned; he had accepted that George was here, conveniently in the same place as him, even if it was impossible. Fred didn't care. The reason, the only reason, that he'd come back here was for him. Sure; Angelina was beautiful, and even the thought of seeing her again would have made him feel tingly if he had any sensations like that anymore, and seeing his other siblings, his mother and father, was equally important, and not having them would have made it impossible to breathe sometimes, if he could breathe. But he could _feel_ not having George, like feeling pain in an arm that had been sliced off. If it hadn't have been for George, then Fred never would have made the deal that made him—even in his unsubstantial state-possible.

Fred had gotten bored with trying to awake his alcohol-soaked twin and had floated away. By now, Kat and Fred passed by each other in the halls of the cottage as if it was natural, and sometimes Kat would even talk out loud to Fred, calling him "her ghost." Fred felt uncomfortable with the idea of him being labeled as _anyone's,_ especially this seemingly untalented Muggle. She really didn't do anything interesting; she didn't appear to go out for long nights and come back with a companion or even a stumble in her step. All she ever did was _read_ and tap tap tap at her little information box—Fred vaguely recalled his father calling it a _complooter_, but how was he to be sure that's what it was? But Fred had not spoken to her yet, remaining mute; he didn't know if he could manage it if she could only see him, not hear him. So he was surprised when she came in, balancing a pile of books on one arm and his twin on the other.

Fred was floating around and examining photos when he heard his twin's voice; it was the same one that had echoed endlessly in his ears. When he had been stuck, before he had been offered a deal of the likes of Orpheus and Eurydice, it had been George's voice, George's sobs, and cries that had pounded in his head. It was the sweetest torture, being able to hear his twin again but knowing that he would never be able to touch him. Something held Fred back from floating into the living room, to make his dramatic grand appearance as he listened to the exchange between Kat and George. What had prompted her to give him a place to sleep, when he was clearly a drunken idiot? Was it the fact that he could have some answers for the creature that was haunting her, or just some feeble construction of kindness? Fred listened in on the conversation attentively, sure to catch each sigh, each breath. He heard George say something about Death Eaters and let out a low, nearly inaudible groan—his brother must have been in really rough shape if he didn't recognize how plainly _Muggle _this girl was. Fred sighed and leaned against the wall on the other side of the opened door, forgetting his incorporeal form and sliding easily through the wallpaper and wooden posts. Suddenly, two pairs of aware eyes were looking at his translucent body.

"Erm, hello, George," Fred said awkwardly, as his brother raised his eyes to meet his. "How's the shop?"

**OoOoO**

It was a funny thing, Kat and George meeting on the street like that. Kat would chock it up to coincidence; despite the majority of her life being based around concepts like fate, with so much of literature being written about romantic tanglings that seemed to fall into place like pieces on God's—or whoever, Kat would think—chessboard, Kat was firmly stuck in rationality, like believing only what you see was quicksand. But when George thought back to that night, his brain could not eliminate the image of an elderly man with a long sweeping beard, half-moon glasses, and a sparkling twinkle in his eye. Even though Professor Albus Wulfric Percival Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin, First Class, had long lost the ability to puppeteer the lives of Wizards of the world, George couldn't help thinking that it was exactly the type of meeting that the old Headmaster would have engineered. Then again, maybe that was just _magic._


	4. The Hell Hounds' Tarot

**Title: **At Wit's End

**Author: **TheAudaciousButterfly

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **When Kat inherited her uncle's cottage at Wit's End, she was expecting to be sharing it with dust mites and the occasional spider, but instead she finds a ghost with a penchant for watching her in the shower. But her ghost has made a deal with Death, and Kat gets swept up in fixing it before it's too late.

**Disclaimer: **J.K. Rowling is the rightful owner of all things Harry Potter.

**Author's Note: **This is one of my least favourite chapters…the next couple have been really hard to write! The story at the end was the toughest part for sure.

**The Hell Hounds' Tarot**

"So, then, okay, I said, if you won't answer that try this one instead, and I came right out with it, _Is there a Devil. _After that the glass—baprebap!—began to shake – catch your ears! – slowslow at first, then faster-faster, like a jelly, until it jumped! –ai-hai! –up from the table, into the air, fell down on its side and –o-ho!—into a thousand and one pieces, smashed. Believe don't believe, Babasahed Mhatre told his charge, but thenandthere I learned my lesson: don't meddle, Mhatre, in what you do not comprehend."

_The Satanic Verses, _by Salman Rushdie

Professor Sybill Trelawney adjusted her thick round glasses—the moment they slipped from the perfect, perching position on her nose her eyes were useless—as she plopped down in her seat in one of the cushy seats in her classroom. The Divinations professor rung her hands together as her students looked at her expectantly. She could see in those faces reflections of faces that came before, and faces that were no more. A lump choked her momentarily as she thought of the students lost in the Battle of Hogwarts; all of those deaths she had predicted and _no one_ had listened to her.

"Erm, Professor?" called a small student in the front row; she looked distinctly like a dormouse, with ears that were much too large for the rest of her head and round, black eyes. "I think there's something wrong with my pack of cards." Her partner, across the table, a brutish-looking third year boy, looked slightly petrified as he nodded his agreement.

Professor Trelawney rolled her eyes. It was rare that _anyone_ could appreciate the gift of Sight, and this batch of third years was no exception. But really, reading the tarot was the easiest of all of the Divine arts, and Sybill always began with simply the Major Arcana. "Oooh, well, let me take a look at them," Trelawney said, sweeping out of her seat and moving toward the student who spoke.

"Oy! There's something wrong with ours too!" yelled a boy from the back and Trelawney once again rolled her eyes. She went to examine the cards of the first pairing, and took a horrified step backward, clutching her dark red robes at her chest. Four of the cards in the pack no longer had pictures, but now only depicted black, empty pits.

**OoOoO**

Kat's hands were clutching her bottle of what she had been told was Butterbeer so tightly, her knuckles were starting to turn white. She had been abandoned in this shabby little pub called the Leaky Chamberpot—or _something_—by her ghost and his almost identical twin. If it hadn't been for the one's loss of aural appendage, and the other's translucent body, she may not have been able to tell them apart at all. Although George had that familiar look in his eyes, that oldest kind of brokenness that made her want to cringe, hide away, and never have to be the fixer again. Kat did not release the bottle from the vice that was her fingers as she took a sip, brought back into the reality that was the dimly-lit pub—if you could call it _reality. _A short man next to her had attempted to sell her what he had called a Hippogriff's egg for forty Galleons, but she had refused on account of the fact that she knew neither what a Hippogriff nor a Galleon was. People all of the small, circular room were tipping off pointed hats to one another, tossing heavy black cloaks—_cloaks, _for Christ's sake!—across the back of chairs and greeting each other with names like "Elfrida!" and "Dymphna!" who replied with a startled shriek.

When her ghost and George Weasley were reunited in the living room of her uncle's eccentric cottage, Kat had assumed that she could _finally_ have her hands free of her ghost. She could shower without self consciously sticking her head out from behind the shower curtain to see her ghost lounging with a lazy grin on the counter by her sink, forcing her to clutch her faded pink towel—or whichever one she had bothered to wash that week- to her body and glare at him before stepping out. For some reason that Kat was still attempting to understand, Fred—that was, she had learned, her ghost's name—and George had not allowed her curl up with a steaming cup of tea and forget all about the fact that a _ghost_ had infiltrated the walls of the cottage.

"George," Fred had said in what he must have imagined was a whisper, but was in fact perfectly audible to Kat, who was standing near the wall which contained the majority of her photographs, so she was framed by pictures of herself and others with ridiculous grins—they contrasted greatly to the pinched expression that was crossing her real countenance. "She's a _Muggle_ who can see ghosts. Surely that means something?"

"Weirder things have happened," George said, holding out a thick finger which looked like it had been burned enough times that he wouldn't leave fingerprints if he decided to break into a bank vault. "I don't think she's anything special." Kat had glared at this comment; not that _she_ thought she was particularly special, but she didn't need anyone to point it out on a regular basis, now did she?

It was true that she was rather mundane. Her hair distinctly resembled the colour of mud, and she had been told that it was the most common hair colour in the Western world by a cheerful but misguided hairstylist who had received a rather meager tip—half because of her rudeness and half because Kat had been unable to afford anything more extravagant. Right now it was a royal mess—she had yet to shower this morning because of her houseguest so it was rather limp and had picked up overnight grease. Kat had rather average brown eyes, remarkable only because of the sharp way that they could appraise someone, ensuring that whoever she was looking at knew that she was dissatisfied with them. The length of her legs gave her the appearance of some disproportionate bug, though she still managed to be notably shorter than the twins—George could only imagine her next to lanky and towering Ron.

Fred, however, was shaking his head. "No, no, _no. _I mean, you're right, she really _isn't_ anything special—but I think I'm supposed to keep her around anyway. When I got sent back—I got sent _here_ for a reason. I think she's supposed to help me." Kat, still observing, was giving Fred the infamous look of appraisal that had made braver men flinch on a few occasions. "I came here for a reason, George. Besides, after you spilled the beans about what we are, I don't see why she shouldn't join us."

George was watching Kat carefully, watching her eyes narrow and her lips purse. The two considered each other for a moment; while George was normally one for letting himself trust easily, Kat was practiced in taking step backward. _I only need myself, _Kat let herself remember her old mantra; it was the one she repeated when she was a little girl and would hide in the closet when her parents wouldn't give her what she wanted, and it was what she had told herself later, when _he…_Kat stopped herself before she betrayed any emotion and her face remained a stony mask.

"Besides," Fred said with a slow grin that carried a ghost of deception behind her. "She doesn't know it yet, but now she's bound to me. If she doesn't help me, then she dies too."

**OoOoO**

"Store looks good. Doing well," Fred commented quietly as he floated through the shelves of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. He attempted to straighten a Puking Pastille, but his hand passed through it like air. _Oh right,_ he thought. _That._ Fred hadn't asked a question, but had made an assumption that George had answered with a nod, and by replacing the trick candy that Fred had attempted to move.

"Why did you get to come back?" George asked, in a strangled voice. He knew _how_ he could come back, knew his mission now, but he wanted to know why it was _Fred_ who was able to come back.

"Dunno," Fred replied. "Probably because I'm so charming and handsome that death realized that the world couldn't live without me." He shot George a grin that reminded the live twin of Fred right before they were about to pull off a massive prank. George had always been nervous, but Fred only looked excited.

"Fred?" George said softly, running a finger along the dusty counter and then tapping his wand against the surface so that it became clean and polished.

"Yeah, George?"

"I'm really glad you're back."

**OoOoO**

"What do you mean, I'll _die_?" Kat finally burst, breaking her silence with an angry exclamation.

"I dunno. Whatever you've done to piss Death off…he's not happy with you," Fred replied, lazily examining the pale half-moon of his cuticles as if he'd just told her that he liked her new haircut.

Kat felt ire rising in her chest, and her face was turning a disgruntled shade of pink. "All of this is such..such bollocks! There's no _Death_ or _ghosts _or any of this…You die, you go into the ground, and you rot, just the way that fruit does when you leave it out too long," she exclaimed, holding her hands up angrily.

Fred sighed, rolling his eyes, thinking that she was being _massively _melodramatic. "Whatever, Kitty Kat, you've still got to help me," he said with a grin that displayed a row of teeth like wispy pearls, disappearing into thin air. George watched him from the corner of his eye, forever the more cautious twin; he knew that Fred was half-acting and putting on the façade of being indifferent, but he was desperate. Whatever help Fred thought that Kat could offer, he was working hard to ensure that he received it. Fred leaned forward, his face so close to Kat's that she could feel her cheek turn cold, so sudden it felt like the sun was going behind the clouds. "Would you like to know how?"

Before Kat could reply, Fred began the story.

**OoOoO**

_Once upon a time, _Death depended on three old, blind sisters to determine the fates of people based on their good and bad deeds. They were punished for their good deeds and rewarded for their good deeds. But one day as Death came to the bedside of a very sick wizard at the command of the three old sisters who had gotten into a disagreement with another wizard and killed him. At the side of his bed, Death noticed that the wizard was surrounded by people, who were all crying. Death was surprised to see this, as he knew that the man was being punished for his cruelty.

Death first turned to the wizard's wife and asked her what she had done to deserve the pain of her husband's illness. The wizard's wife responded that she had done nothing she thought wrong, as she had cared heartily for their children and had kept up the small but thriving apothecary shop, where they sold potions ingredients.

Death was confused—surely to be in this much pain, the wife must be suffering as well. He then turned to the wizard's young son and asked him what he may have done to earn his sorrow. The young man replied that he had dutifully gone to school and had stood up for a weaker wizarding student who was being bullied.

Death remained in a state of shock. There was no possible way that the family was being correctly punished. Finally, he turned to the very young daughter of the wizard. She was a shy child, but did not seem afraid of Death. He asked her too, what she had done in order to deserve her father's illness. With a sniffle, the girl responded that perhaps—_perhaps—_she had forgotten to give the hippogriffs the extra bit of sugar she gave them every morning.

Death had to consider that the Fates' method of reward and punishment was not always working—he was punishing people who were not responsible. In response, he paid a visit to the three old sisters and told them they'd have to be more effective in their rewards and punishments. So the sisters gave Death a deck of cards, and told him that if he could find humans to inhabit these cards, they would use the cards to determine the fates of men.

The next day, Death returned to the bedside of the dying wizard. He saw his family, again gathered around the bed and all seemed more sad than the day before. Death again asked the wife of the wizard what she could have done to deserve losing her husband. She guiltily explained that she had slept with her neighbour and was now pregnant. Death entrapped her in a card and called it The Empress, due to the small, gold pin that the woman wore, shaped like a crown, which would embody the mother and fertility, but also bareness and unwanted pregnancy.

Death turned to the young boy, noticing that he had a broken nose, angry and red, and asked him the same question. The boy replied with downcast eyes that he had quarreled with the bully and had started a physical fight with him, resulting in his injury. Death trapped the boy in a card and called it the Fool, due to his clown-like appearance, which would represent recklessness, but also bravery.

Finally, Death turned to the sobbing young girl, and asked her his question. "Please, sir. I haven't done anything. I even fed the animals extra," she replied, sniffling. And so Death gave the girl the mission of creating the rest of the cards, after which she would be able to save her father from his impending death. From then on, Death would offer the chance at continued life if they could find people to inherit the Fates' tarot cards. _This _was Fred's opportunity.

When Fred finished his chronicle, he was met with a contemptuous snort. "Why," asked Kat slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Should I believe you?"

What she didn't tell him was that despite all of her bravado, she already _did, _the same reason that she ended up sipping a _Butterbeer_—she still didn't know what it was, but it made her feel all warm—in a dingy pub on the edges of Diagon Alley.


End file.
